All dialogue comes from the corresponding chapter in the book, since this is a very canon-compliant chapter with Shiro simply being there. The next several chapter will have Shiro being more involved with the action.
1/16/18: Minor updates to account for Tactus' presence.
Chapter 26: Teatime:
Invictus Hangar Bay
The Asteroid Belt
February 4th, 2841
Takashi Shirogane didn't normally care about what other people thought of him. In school, he'd always ignored the gossip and rumor mills, not really caring how others perceived him. The only time he'd ever really been concerned with his reputation was when Keith had informed him that the Garrison had covered up the disappearance of the Kerberos crew as a crash due to pilot error. The idea that he was being used as a scapegoat to sweep everything under the rug grated on his nerves, especially since the Garrison hadn't even thought to consider what he wanted when they strapped him down and sedated him so that they could analyze his arm. But after months in space fighting the Galra, he was able to push the frustration at his tarnished reputation to the back of his mind.
After his time in this era, though, he was beginning to rethink his lack of concern for his reputation. Joining Darrow's crusade had alleviated his frustration at not being able to help the lower colors being oppressed to ensure Gold's comfort, but since they weren't openly part of the rebellion, the guilt and frustration still lingered. And his current situation didn't help matters. He, along, with Darrow, Roque, Tactus, Victra, Sevro, the Howlers, the Telemanuses, Lorn au Arcos, Mustang, and Ragnar, had smuggled themselves aboard the Invictus, the flagship of the Augustus fleet by hiding inside a captured camel vessel. They'd hidden in the belly of the transport for fifteen hours as they approached Hildas Station, a star-shaped trade and communications hub on the fringes of the asteroid belt.
Now, silence spread like wildfire as the war party walked across the deck, armed to the teeth. The bustle of activity in the hangar stopped instantly as the lowColors working in the hangar took note of their presence. Darrow and Lorn au Arcos took the lead, flanked by Mustang and Kavax au Telemanus. Roque, Victra, Sevro and Daxo followed in the middle. Tactus and Shiro were next in line with the Howlers behind them, with Ragnar bringing up the rear like a pale, giant shepherd. Nobody in the warship's massive hangar protested the party's movement, even if their choice of attire makes their intentions perfectly clear. The group's boots all sounded like hail on the decks as they crossed the room. Shiro felt a twinge of guilt as he looked around and saw the repeated looks of fear in the eyes of the other lowColors in the room. It didn't matter to him that he and his friends have no intention of harming them. The fact that they were afraid of him was enough to make him feel guilty for being there.
But as much as Shiro wanted to reassure them that they were safe, and that he and his friends were not here to hurt them, the practical side of his brain knew that the success of Darrow's plan relied on intimidating Pliny and his supporters. Listening to what his conscience was telling him to do right now would only undermine that. And so he kept silent as the Reaper dispatched Pebble to have her squads of Greens crash the ship's communications system. The party entered the belly of the beast without a single shot being fired at or by them, and they rode the lift in silence until they were one floor above the command level. The doors opened and brought the group face to face with a squad of Gray marines.
"Captain, you're to accompany Virginia au Augustus to the engineering bay," Darrow told the Gray bluntly. The man's eyes quickly took in the gravity of the situation, and after barely any hesitation, he saluted. His confused men fell in behind Mustang, Shiro, and the Telemanuses as they headed off to the engineering bay at a trot. As they set off, alarms began to wail.
"Well," Shiro remarked sarcastically. "If Pliny didn't know we were here before, he certainly does now." Mustang's expression was professionally neutral, but he could recognize from her eyes that she appreciated the attempt to lighten the mood. The Grays chuckled at the humor, and the Telemanuses laughed so loudly Shiro was afraid he'd lose all hearing in his right ear if they did it again. They reached the bay quickly and grabbed what they needed. Then, they carefully made their way into the lowColor galley as Kavax and Daxo carried their heavy cargo between them. The fact that both men were straining to hold it despite their massive size and strength gave Shiro a new appreciation for how heavy this technology was.
They met up with Darrow's cadre in the galley during lunch hours. Orange deckhands and electricians mingled with Red factory workers and Brown janitors, but the drone of conversation and plastic trays clattering on metal tables abruptly halted as soon as Ragnar entered the galley. The room was silent except for an overexcited janitor who screamed before his comrades quickly shut him up. The towering Stained walked to the center of the room and moved one of the metal tables out of the way, breaking it free of its bolts and dragging it across the metal floor with its occupants still seated on the attached benches. Shiro let out a low whistle in awe of the warrior's strength. The Telemanuses carried the circular device they'd retrieved from the engineering bay forward as Mustang guided them into position.
"Here," she said, and Daxo and Kavax dropped it where she pointed. Shiro and the Grays followed, placing the huge battery unit on a nearby table. Darrow ordered the Howlers, who'd been sent to take the engines and life support systems, to begin their attack while Pebble helped hook up the battery. Suddenly, the ship's speakers activated with a crackle as Sevro's voice called out with a threateningly sweet tone. Darrow and Mustang snapped at him to stop, and one of the Greens attempted to disconnect the terminal, but it was too late.
"Dear Pliny," Sevro sang tauntingly over the comm.
"If your heart beats like a drum,"
"and your leg's a little wet,"
"It's 'cause the Reaper's come"
"To collect a little debt."
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Shiro couldn't help but laugh at the juvenile little song the lead Howler had cooked up. Behind him, Tactus chuckled as Sevro repeated it three times until Ragnar threw a table into the console. The bickering between the hulking Obsidian and the diminutive Gold only made the two laugh even harder before Lorn reminded everyone to get back on task.
"Right," Darrow said, getting everyone's attention. "Serious faces everyone." Wordlessly, everyone's helmets slid from their armor to cover their skulls. Thermal readings and power levels replaced the visible spectrum. "Prime it," he told Mustang. And with the push of a button, she activated the leechCraft thermal drill they'd set up. Talk about overkill, Shiro thought to himself. Roque and Victra had tutored him in space naval tactics on the way to Europa, and he knew from what he'd learned that the drills on leechCraft were designed to burrow through the outer hull of a ship and create a breach large enough for a boarding party to pour through. Carving through the floor of a ship was nothing, and the command rooms were directly beneath them. Without a word, Darrow jumped on top of the drill.
Over the last two weeks, Shiro had often found the former Red coming to him when he needed advice. Because the Black Paladin had an outsider's perspective on the entire system, Darrow explained that he felt that this made Shiro a more likely sounding board for ideas or doubts. Sevro was a bit too blinded by the Reaper persona to be blunt with him, even now. So, before Mustang figured out the truth, Shiro had been Darrow's confidant. Both men had bonded over what it was like to have to constantly hide who they really were, and even as Mustang, Roque, Quinn, Tactus, Victra, and now Ragnar were brought into the fold, the two had spent evenings on the way to Europa discussing each other's families, the burden of being the leaders of their respective teams, and other bits of their personal histories.
Which meant that Shiro understood the parallels when Darrow readied himself for what came next. Momentum is everything to a Helldiver, the Red had explained. Keep moving and dare someone to get in your path. With his position on the drill, Shiro knew Darrow was recognizing the parallels. He was about to be a Helldiver again, even if only for a moment.
"You know what I said earlier?" Lorn inquired as everyone made their final preparations.
"About tact?" Darrow asked as he readied his razor. Lorn's grin behind his beard was almost malicious.
"Slag tact," the old man remarked. "Terrify them." Darrow smiled as he turned to Mustang.
"Burn," he told her, and she pressed a button. Almost immediately, the drill glowed red. Heat radiated upwards and spread along the floor. The remaining lowColors in the room fled, abandoning their food as the floor sagged and melted in a way that reminded Shiro of sand falling through an hourglass. The drill fell through the dripping deck into the command room beneath with Darrow the Reaper riding on its back. The group heard the crack of splintering wood through the hole in the partially melted deck, and Shiro surmised that the drill had landed on the ArchGovernor's wooden table he'd seen the few times he'd been aboard the Invictus before leaving for Europa. The taunt power cord went limp as smoke, steam, and flames climbed upwards from the hole, the thermal sensors in their helmets indicating that the table had caught fire from the heat of the drill. That's one way to make an entrance I suppose, Shiro thought with a chuckle.
"My Goodmen!" they all heard Darrow bellow through the voice amplifier in his helmet from below. "I have come for Pliny." Through the hole, the reaper jumped down from the drill as his helmet rippled back into his armor so everyone could see his face. As Darrow walked away from the hole, Arcos jumped down, followed by Mustang. Shiro and Sevro leaped through behind her. As they landed on the burning wooden table of Augustus' office, more of their battle party followed through the hole above them. Pliny sat at the head of the long table, his face paling quickly. He only had eye left, a temporary bionic replacement lodged in the socket where Mustang had removed the organic one in her escape. Moira, the Fury, sat to his right, with an Olympic Knight by her side.
"You said he was dead," someone to Darrow's left snarled, razor half pulled. Lorn au Arcos' name ripped through the room in panicked whispers as Shiro and Tactus quickly secured the doors leading into the room. Kavax boomed his own name wildly as he landed on the table. Pax must have learned it somewhere, I guess, Shiro observed with a wry smile.
"The Reaper is not dead," Mustang said as she hopped down from the drill. "Nor am I. Nor is my brother. And we have come to reclaim what belongs to our father."
"Liars!" Pliny cried frantically. "You betrayed the ArchGovernor. Seize the traitors."
"If anyone comes within two meters of Darrow," Arcos proclaimed simply. "I kill everyone in this room." Shiro fought the urge to shudder at how calmly the threat had been delivered. Even if Darrow's allies were exempt from that, Arcos' eerie calm was terrifying. But nobody in the room was eager to call the old man's bluff. As Darrow walked forward, the men he passed between frantically jumped backwards as Lorn's reputation carved a hole for him straight to Pliny.
"Pliny," the young warlord said. "We must speak."
"Kill him!" Pliny screamed. "Kill the Reaper!" A young man lunged forward to strike at Darrow, only to immediately die as his neighbor stabbed him in the back, looking fearfully at Arcos.
"Two-point-three meters," the ex-Rage Knight remarked dryly. "Close."
"Kill him!" Pliny shouted, futilely attempting to prevent the inevitable. "He's just a boy!"
"Pliny au Velocitor," Darrow began as he continued along the length of the table. His voice was quiet, but still loud enough that Shiro could hear him all the way from the door. "You are a traitor to ArchGovernor Nero au Augustus. You have conspired to destroy his house, to forcibly marry his daughter, to kill his son, and betray him to the Sovereign, who has set herself against him. Your master raised you up, and you tried to tear him down. You have betrayed his trust all for personal gain. Worst of all, you have failed."
"Stop him!" Pliny screamed again, wildly gesticulating at Darrow. "Moira!" he cried out, desperately turning to the Fury for aid. But the Sovereign's chief Politico just whispered to the Storm Knight before both stepped to the side. Shiro couldn't hear what Pliny muttered to Darrow from his side of the room, but he was guessing it was probably something about how Aja was supposed to have killed the lancer on Europa.
"And who do you know that can kill me?" Darrow said loudly, an overdramatic rage building in his voice to impress and terrify the war-hungry Golds in the room. "The Jackal failed. Antonia au Sevrus-Julii failed. Proctors Apollo and Jupitar failed. Cassius au Bellona failed. Karnus failed. Cagney failed. Aja au Grimmus and her Praetorians failed. And now you fail." Though he doesn't say so aloud for obvious reasons, Shiro and the others were aware of the fact that the hangman mines, and pitvipers of Lykos failed remained unsaid. Then, without warning, Darrow slipped forward and slapped Pliny across the face. Shiro only had time to blink in shock at the Reaper's audacity as Pliny pitched sideways out of his seat like a leaf smacked around in the wind. The Politico careened into a Gold woman who'd been standing by his side. She spat on the man and quickly moved out of Darrow's way.
"You are a worm who thought himself a serpent just because you slither," the boy warlord commented mockingly. "But your power was not real, Pliny. It was all a dream. Time now to wake." Pliny scrambled to his feet as he pushed himself away from Darrow. His hair, normally carefully combed, was a mess, and redness swelled on his right cheek where the Reaper had struck him. While Shiro felt a small amount of pity for the man, he ultimately realized that such behavior from Augustus' toady should have been expected. Pliny never attained the rank of Peerless Scarred like so many of the Golds in this room had. He hadn't been dragged out of bed, stripped naked, and beaten by Obsidians on his first day of The Institute, nor did he ever ride at the head of an armored column of loyal peers. He didn't starve for his social status, so now the only thing he could do was scramble away and cry.
Darrow seized the older man with his hands and lifted him high into the air. But he refrained from harming the older man further. Karnus au Bellona would demean the moment with petty cruelty, but Shiro, Mustang, Sevro, Roque, Quinn, Victra, Daxo, and Kavax all knew that Darrow was smart enough not to fall into that trap. In this momet, condescension was his best weapon. So, the Reaper set Pliny back in the ArchGovernor's chair and buffed his dragonfly pin. He straightened the Politico's hair like an affectionate mother, patted him on his tear-stained check, and extended his hand, which bore the class ring of House Mars. Without Darrow saying a word, Pliny tilted his head forward and kissed the ring.
"Goodbye, Pliny," Darrow said calmly. "I leave you to your friends." And with that, the young warlord turned and walked away, back towards his friends. The eyes of all the other Peerless in the room followed him, abandoning Pliny. Shiro closed his eyes as he heard a slurping sound from the other end of the room. He'd watched holos of duels enough to know what razors sounded like when they killed. So much for their loyalty to Pliny, the Black Paladin thought to himself sadly as he opened his eyes in time to watch Pliny's dead body slump forward in its chair.
As Pliny's former Peerless allies thumped their fists against their chests in salute to Darrow, Shiro couldn't help but think of how monstrous Gold "culture" really was beneath the surface. Allegiances shifted with the wind as greedy Golds chased power, failing to realize that power not a flexible thing. Power is the mountain, he remembered Darrow telling him once. Not the wind. To shift so easily is to lose trust. And trust is what keeps us alive. The Sovereign knew this, as evidenced by how she kept her Furies close. They would die for her. As Sevro, Victra, Tactus, Roque, Quinn, and the Howlers would die for Darrow. As Shiro would die for the rest of Team Voltron, and they for him. Because in the end, what does all the power in the universe matter if your closest friends can turn on you in the blink of an eye?
Octavia's father learned this the hard way when she usurped him with the help of his own allies. Pliny learned it at the cost of his own life. Darrow had admitted to Shiro on the way to the Invictus that he'd forgotten this truth in the years since the Institute as he distanced himself from his friends, and nearly lost everything because of it. It was why Red would have a chance at rebellion. Why, unlike the Obsidians' Dark Revolt centuries ago, the Sons of Ares stood a chance at winning. Because Reds were a people bound by song and dance, family and kinship. Whereas Golds were only ever allies with each other because they thought they had to be. Shiro looked at Pliny's former allies and recognized what Darrow had been talking about. These people were so stern, so rigid, that they'll break and shatter against each other, not because of the rebellion, but because of what they had been raised and groomed to be. After a moment, Darrow floated off the ground on his gravBoots, putting everyone's attention back on him.
"Tell all who will hear," he proclaimed. "The Reaper sails to Mars. And he calls for an Iron Rain."
Terminology:
Camel Vessel: Cargo ship used to transport food and other temperature-sensitive supplies.
Pitviper: Venomous snake found beneath the surface of Mars. The venom is lethal, and the only way for someone to survive is to have the venom sucked out like poison from a leech. Darrow's heart is stronger than normal because when he got bitten as a child, his uncle left a non-lethal amount of the poison in his bloodstream on purpose, to make him stronger.
Helldiver: the miners working beneath the surface of Mars who operate the drills.